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FURTHER EXAMINATION OF THE BONDIAN ÁPPROACH The relation of the two approaches to the audience is a useful point to start from in the discussion of Bond’s approach because his work has been often discussed in the light of Brecht’s theory??? which Bond himself has widely argued against.*** Amoiropoulos engages in a detailed exploration of authors who link Bond’s work with Brecht and concludes that “when commentators try to illuminate in more detail Bondian practice as a Brechtian development, they frequently fall into inconsistencies”.** Brecht wrote extensively in a variety of genres. In-depth analysis of his theory has been the subject of numerous other studies. I will just present those elements of his thinking that will be useful in understanding the major differences with Bond. Brecht defined his own work as epic theatre, distinguishing it from Aristotle’s theory of drama. He writes about the role of the audience in epic theatre as the following: “The spectator was no longer in any way allowed to submit to an experience uncritically (and without practical consequences) by means of simple empathy with the characters in a play. The production took the subject-matter and the incidents shown and put them through a process of alienation: the alienation that is necessary to all understanding”.**° The critical attitude of the spectator needs to be activated according to Brecht?" in relation to specific social circumstances “to discover means for their elimination”.*** The social change that Brecht strives for should be based on the observation of social and historical phenomena that appear in events, and the epic theatre observed and presented these “and then the thick end of the wedge followed: the story’s moral”.**” In epic theatre Brecht aims to offer his audience the possibility of understanding social practices by distancing them from these and offering a moral in some form to enhance that they have “practical consequences”*“° outside the theatre as well. 383 Scharine: The plays of Edward Bond; Hay—Roberts: Bond; Hirst: Edward Bond. 334 Edward Bond: Selections from the notebooks of Edward Bond, lan Stuart (ed.), London, Methuen, 2000, 179; Edward Bond: Edward Bond Letters 5, Ian Stuart (ed.), London, Routledge, 2001, 7. Amoiropoulos: Balancing Gaps, 6. Bertolt Brecht: Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction, in John Willett (ed.): Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, London, Eyre Methuen, 1978, 71. Schechner (Schechner, Richard: Performance Theory, London, Routledge, 2004, 176.) explains that Brecht wants the theatre audience to ask questions that a crowd would ask when they gather around the site of an accident in the street. Brecht (Brecht, Bertolt: Brecht on Theatre, New York, Hill & Wang, 1964, 121) explains the mode of acting in Epic Theatre through an analogy of an accident on a street in his essay titled The Street Scene. While the dramaturgical function of a crisis creating possibilities for questioning is similar to Bond’s DE, the demonstrative mode of acting Brecht refers to here is in sharp contrast to what Bond describes as enactment, discussed in detail further on in this chapter. Brecht: Theatre for Pleasure, 75. 339 Ibid. 340 Tbid., 71. 33: a 33 a 33 S 33: æ +89»
